Thank you for posting that. Four years of reading this board and this could be the best information I have read on here.

 

Sheppard Air Flight Test 4.0 Prep Software ATP, Flight Engineer, Mil Comp - FAA Airline Transport Pilot

 

Sheppard Air is the way to go...

 

From previous post:

I can't speak for 9e, but I would take a hard look at considering Colgan right now. The training department is a nightmare. Things are more disorganized than ever and in terms of personnel, the turnover is surprising. The logistics and scheduling part of the training department is run with complete incompetence and candidates are treated poorly at best. You are put at a disadvantage from the beginning, not how you want to start your career.

Things haven't improved, although we all hoped they would. The Colgan management style, running training with divulging as little information as possible and ruling with intimidation, is still very much a part of it. There is very little regard for your quality of life or your family. I know for a fact they recently told a pilot once he started training that even though he had been given no future schedule for training, he wasn't to schedule anything in his personal life, as it would be unacceptable to miss a training event! Talk about unacceptable, this is tough when an 8 week training course takes 4 months. I realize it's difficult as a new hire to stand up when you're constantly treated unfairly, but they know that as well and will use it against you. Know the contract, and voice whenever your schedule, duty, contact notification, deadhead, ground or sim is handled improperly, don't let it become the norm. Expect the unexpected, but don't accept the substandard treatment and poor planning of the scheduling/training department.

 

Really? 9L training dept (which Mesaba runs) has done a good job. Ask others who have gone through it within the last year. You sound like one of the guys that washed out and spewing your sour grapes

 

I think right now it's still 98% Colgan running training. It's been my understanding that the hiring is now 50/50 or greater with Mesaba doing a bunch of that. Pinnacle is sending some of the CRJ guys up to use Mesaba facilities but they're taking Pinnacle instructors with them. The part of this contract that's had growing pains is fighting the "this is the way it's always been done" mentality. I too dislike long term training events because every airline likes to ignore the fact you've been away from home for two months or more. I don't think that's solely the domain of Colgan but it IS pretty ridiculous that as professionals we accept that kind of treatment. Other professions treat even new hires as human beings.

 

Definately. I've had nothing but good experiences and nice people with the Colgan training. I ran into a few delays with scheduling and they were very cooperative in setting me up with positive space flights home to pass the time.

 

Comical, and far from washed out. Not sure I've ever heard someone defend the 9L training dept, interesting... Guess I'm not the "yes sir, anytime sir, no problem sir, sacrifice everything for Colgan" type. My post was simply a warning to stand up for yourself, not fight with fellow Cjc'rs.

We look forward to the Mesaba influence, it seems however many of the incompetent pieces currently at Colgan are staying.

 

Hmmm, I guess everyone's experience is different. I had a few delays here and there but the company positive spaced me home during delays. I understood there's only so many sims to go around with training and PCs so naturally there's going to be SNAFUs but I in no way agree with your previous sentiments. Hopefully its all smoothed out for ya

 

I don't know when you went through training and experienced all of this, but my very limited experience thus far (2 days) has been very different. There's certainly a lack of information at times, but that's bound to happen with the integration of Colgan and Mesaba happening. Everyone so far has been very friendly, competent, and in no way intimidating. They've also been very clear that while the sims are backed up and there might be some delays between the oral and sims or the sims and IOE, they will absolutely positive space you back home and do their best to give you as much notice as possible and try to work with you if you have something important like a wedding or child birth coming up that you know about. I don't know if you had a bad experience with how things used to be, but from what I've heard and from my experience thus far, since Mesaba took over the hiring and training umbrella in February, things might not be running totally smooth but they are no where near as horrible as you make it out to be.